The Sixth Artifact

By: David Collins

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Ben, Chloe, Mark, and the others are off on another adventure, one in which they stumble across another war out in the depths of space.

But, this time, there are no obvious good aliens and bad aliens, and things are not going their way.

One encounter somehow morphs into a Cozy Alien Murder Mystery.

Another involves a race composed of potentially poisonous toxic material that can shape shift.

Then, they encounter even more aliens, and nothing is what it seems. The clues are there, but one wrong step, and there will be more dead aliens and possibly dead humans.

Needs more depth

I am really beginning to dislike virtual voice narration. It is very hard to follow the story while driving which is where I normally listen to audiobooks. Also, these books tend to jump from story point to story point without really developing the characters.

excellent action and cool aliens

an excellent series, fun to listen to and imagine the possibilities. AI-narration isn't there yet, as run-on sentences, awkward pauses, and mispronunciation often catches the listener off-guard, requiring more focus and mental rearrangement than should be necessary.

More “hard” science fiction

I don’t know if he got some help with relativistic non-simultaneity calculations, but I am pleased. On the other hand, the AI appropriately referred to the general size of an object as “bigger than a breadbox, but then when asked to be more specific, gave an area, square feet, rather than a cubic feet volume. I know. I am being persnickety… but still. 😜

Story line is progressing well.

The creativity of the story line is exceptional, good plot development without completely psychedelic story lines. The development continues to be creative and interesting after six books.

Good enough

Some writers are better, but most are still good enough when looking for something to listen to.